Making the choice
BY LINA FISHER, Austin Chronicle
FRI., MARCH 11, 2022
When you pop on the Oculus virtual reality headset to watch "The Choice," you're greeted by a young woman with blue braids sitting comfortably in jeans and a sweatshirt about 3 feet away from you. A black void surrounds you both with soothing music, and you're offered some get-to-know-you questions to ask: Where are you from? What do you do?
The woman you're meeting is Kristen, a nanny and activist in Austin who chose, facing life-threatening complications, to have a late-term abortion – a choice which is the subject of empathetic scrutiny in this short film from Polish Canadian director and sociologist Joanne Popinska and cinematographer Tom C. Hall. Popinska and Hall describe "The Choice" as a sort of sociological experiment to shift anti-choice biases using VR technology: Popinska said, "We are always thinking, how are we going to use technology to tell the stories that we want to tell?" First and foremost, she added, "I wanted you to feel close to her. When you hear somebody like a politician or an activist talking about [abortion], it comes in one ear and goes out the other, you don't feel a connection with the person."
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